Lauri Rapala

Born in Sysmä, Rapala shared his home with evergreen forests and hundreds of lakes. At the age of seven, his mother Mari and he moved to the parish of Asikkala, around 116 kilometres (72 mi) from the capital Helsinki. The clergymen at the parish could not remember Mari's surname, Saarinen, and so he simply put it as Rapala, the village in Sysmä municipality from which they had moved. 'Rapa' is one of the Finnish words for "mud." Finnish children of this time were generally put to work as soon as they became capable, and Rapala did the same.

Rapala met Elma Leppänen when he was in his early twenties, and they married in 1928. They lived in her parents' house in Riihilahti until 1933. Europe's economy was in a downturn during this period, and it worsened as the effects of the Great Depression in America arrived in Europe. He worked as a lumberjack during the winter, and a farmer's hand or commercial fisherman in summer. Lauri and Elma had seven children: five sons (Reino, Risto, Ensio, Esko, and Kauko) and two daughters (Marja and Irja).

For fishing, he netted whitefish and set long lines for perch and pike. Three trout weighing 3.6 kilograms (8 lb) earned the equivalent of two weeks' pay in a factory nearby; so Rapala would also troll a line with a baited hook to catch trout. He trolled about a thousand hooks on a trotline behind his traditional Finnish fishing rowing boat, known in Finnish as a 'soutuvene'. He baited all the hooks himself, and since he had no motor for his boat, he rowed approximately 50 kilometres (31 mi) every day, except in storms.

According to the recollection of his son Risto, Lauri Rapala fished for trout with a homemade fishing rod. When a fish hit, he would throw his pole in the water and row behind it to tire the fish. With so much time on the water, Rapala had much time to think, to observe, and to learn how the fish behaved, how the minnows swam, and how the injured minnows were more likely to be eaten by the larger fish. "Our father really understood fishing," says Risto. "He recognized the relationship between bottom structure and where fish are located. He learned how fish fed, and how they moved from one location to another. And Rapala understood the effects of weather on fishing."